6.5 million Americans overseas, more and more becoming targets of the IRS.

[NEW YORK, NY and CINCINNATI, OH ~ Oct. 16, 2014] Trust?

In whom do American expatriates trust?

No longer their Swiss bankers.

Nor bankers from any other country, for that matter.

Not since U.S. regulators have begun targeting every bank account worldwide maintained by Americans living and working overseas. And these are highly professional individuals: diplomats, scientists, physicians and corporate executives, as well as missionaries and military contractors.

Just this summer, the U.S. Treasury Department unleashed a regulatory tsunami upon U.S. citizens living and working abroad, the Foreign Accounts and Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

Uncle Sam and President Obama haven’t exactly spelled out “FATCAT,” but they’re only one letter off. And though their initial interest was to target the 1 percent with significant “quiet” offshore holdings, the average American expat has, unfortunately, been caught in the crosshairs.

“At Bright!Tax, we feel that American expats, for the most part, are American heroes,” said Greg Dewald, principal and founder of Bright!Tax (www.brighttax.com), a cloud-based income tax prep service serving U.S. expatriates.

“In the era of globalization, they represent the best of what the United States projects onto the world stage. At the very least, they deserve to be treated fairly and with a respect that reflects the contributions they make for the greater good.”

“Bright!Tax exists solely to assist American expats with their U.S. tax filing obligation by providing simple, secure and reliable online U.S. tax preparation services that heretofore were simply unavailable,” Dewald said.

There are about 6.5 million Americans living and working overseas, most of whom are still on the hook for filing federal taxes every year, and many of them are simply unaware of their obligation to do so.

They’re assessed on worldwide income, and unless they haven’t renounced U.S. citizenship and returned their passport, expats must file federal taxes every year, as if they lived in Blue Ash or Covington. The IRS penalties for not filing taxes range from $10,000 to $100,000.

With his visionary brand of entrepreneurialism, Dewald is a lifelong achiever who previously owned and ran Opera Inc., an nationally renowned designer of trade show exhibits based in Erlanger, Ky.

While leading Opera, Dewald and his staff of over 50 engaged clients nationwide in a cloud-based design and production process, a platform that singed the potential of web commerce and its commercial potential on his frontal lobe, and thus, led to Bright!Tax.

Bright!Taxis a virtual company, save for its data center in New York, which will be relocated early next year to the first international headquarters. An international site search has narrowed the company’s options to office facilities in London, Belgium, Singapore or Hong Kong.

“We anticipate making a decision sometime this fall, with the goal of opening the first international headquarters for Bright!Tax in January of 2015,” Dewald said.

All employees currently work remotely; all BrightTax front-office, back-office, communications and infrastructure originate in the company’s cloud-based architecture. Dewald currently lives in Argentina and Covington.

The first international headquarters will house the Bright!Tax data center as well as Dewald’s HQ offices and an as-yet undetermined number of staff. Currently, Bright!Tax employs 10 CPAs working remotely from their individual office facilities across the U.S.; expansion plans call for 25 CPAs over the next two years, and as many as 50 over the next five years.

“This is what we’re preparing for, that’s the growth that we’ve seen and the future potential of Bright!Tax is amazing,” Dewald said. “Our goal is to come to scale and to grab a major chunk of this burgeoning industry.

“It’s an opportunity for us to introduce excellence into this space, and to display our true passion, which is our near-fanatical commitment to client happiness and satisfaction.”

“We need a strong voice like Julie’s to help reflect our city’s dynamic and growing arts scene,” says editor Carolyn Washburn. “We want to ensure that the lively scene becomes part of the digital world – mobile, desktop, and the newspaper, of course.”